The leading thread of the project created by Dubravka Vidović, which has been specifically designed for the Artopia space, is water. This is a recurring theme for the artist: in the installation “Waterwalkers” (2001), visitors walked on water; in the video “Crossing Shores Thought” (2001), the figure of an evanescence woman touched the waves in a lagoon; in the public work “Kisa-Pioggia”, exhibited in a typical court of Tuscany in Casale Marittimo, Dubravka Vidovic gathered many coloured buckets ready to be filled with water in order to bring to mind its ration during the war in Croatia. In the work presented in the Artopia gallery, Dubravka Vidovic continues her research: the installation “Boxed Sea” (2007), an expanse of water contained into cartboard boxes and a series of photos realized during a travel in India, in Rajasthan, compose an imaginary landscape where the main element is water. “Boxed Sea" is the sea of memories and remembrances. The desire of containing it into moving boxes and bringing it with her, transforms Vidovic’s research in utopia and in a poetic landscape. The tension of the water stored in boxes represents everybody's effort for existence. In the series of photos (2006), water is still contained into coloured plastic buckets but scattered in a hostile surroundings for representing the tension extended to a wider place. Vidovic’s works sweep over Photography, installations, videos and collage. Everything is made with raw materials got by ordinary life and by combining incompatible objects such as boxes and water in order to create the world of her imagination.

Francesca Pasini